Wednesday, September 26, 2018
In a letter Leahy and all nine other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Trump early Wednesday afternoon, the senators said that the president should reconsider his choice for the court. "Judge Kavanaugh has staunchly declared his respect for women and issued blanket denials of any possible misconduct, but those declarations are in serious doubt," they wrote.
The Judiciary Committee Democrats sent a second letter later Wednesday to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs the panel. They called on Grassley to cancel a Thursday hearing in which Kavanaugh and another alleged victim, Christine Blasey Ford, are scheduled to testify, as well as a Friday committee vote on the nomination.
Tags: Senator , Patrick Leahy , Brett Kavanaugh , Peter Welch , Bernie Sanders , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
The AFSCME Local 1674 made the allegations in a signed complaint to the National Labor Relations Board, the federal body that enforces labor law and collective bargaining agreements.
The complaint was filed ahead of contract negotiations scheduled for Tuesday between Howard Center management and union representatives. The union represents more than 700 Howard Center employees.
In a statement, union president Matt Callahan said Howard Center management discouraged staff from cooperating with a board investigation.
“The most serious of these charges addresses attempts by Human Resources to stifle a NLRB investigation into a charge recently filed by a terminated probationary employee,” Callahan wrote. “Here we assert that Human Resources and Management cannot and shall not order Union workers to refuse to cooperate in Labor Board investigations.”
Tags: Howard Center , Bob Bick , AFSCME , AFSCME Local 1674 , Matt Callahan , David Van Deusen , National Labor Relations Board , Image , Web Only
The commissioner said she and her husband are both from the Philadelphia area and still have family there.
“It’s with mixed emotion, but we’re excited to get back to where we grew up,” Bailey said.
Tags: Melissa Bailey , Department of Mental Health , Al Gobeille , Mourning Fox , Image , Web Only
Monday, September 24, 2018
"It would be very, very damaging — both to the president and to the Republican Party because it would scream of cover-up," said Leahy, the senior-most member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Leahy made the remarks near the end of a day of furious speculation over whether Rosenstein would offer his resignation or Trump would fire him. His status has been uncertain since Friday, when the New York Times reported that Rosenstein had suggested in the spring of 2017 that he wear a wire to record the president and seek Trump's removal from office by invoking the 25th Amendment. The White House said Monday afternoon that Rosenstein remained at the Department of Justice, but that he was scheduled to meet with the president on Thursday.
According to Leahy, firing Rosenstein could effectively end Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election because Rosenstein would be replaced as acting attorney general overseeing the inquiry by Solicitor General Noel Francisco, whom Leahy referred to as "a Trump acolyte."
Tags: Patrick Leahy , Rod Rosenstein , Robert Mueller , Brett Kavanaugh , senator , U.S. Senate , U.S. Supreme Court , nominee , Donald Trump , president , Noel Francisco , Image , Web Only
Greenwood said he doesn’t know how the tweet appeared on his account but confirmed that he deleted it.
“I don’t think I did that,” Greenwood said Monday. “I don’t know how that got there. And I saw that and I deleted it. I don’t know. I can’t say how it got there. I deleted it.”
Tags: Christine Blasey Ford , Chet Greenwood , Vermont Republican Party , Brett Kavanaugh , U.S. Supreme Court , Orleans County Republican Party , GOP , Image , Web Only
Thursday, September 20, 2018
UVM Medical Center said the agreement with the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals is a three-year contract that includes a 16 percent average base salary increase. The union, in turn, agreed to eliminate proposed increases to certain shift differentials. Pay increases for ambulatory nurses will be retroactive to the first full pay period in September, the hospital said.
"We believe this agreement provides meaningful wage increases and allows us to maintain our commitment to all employees and be responsible stewards of limited health care dollars," hospital spokesman Michael Carrese said.
Tags: University of Vermont Medical Center , nurses , strike , union , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
The Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility is operated by CoreCivic, the corporate prison contractor formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America.
Vermont will pay CoreCivic $71 per day for each of the state’s roughly 200 inmates who are housed out of state, according to a Vermont DOC press release. There is room for up to 350 Vermont inmates in the 2,600-person facility in Tutwiler, Miss. The per diem amount will increase annually; the contract runs for a minimum of two years with an option for two more.
Tags: CoreCivic , Corrections Corporation of America , Vermont Department of Corrections , Camp Hill , Pennsylvania , interstate compact , inmates , Image , Web Only
Monday, September 17, 2018
After a California professor alleged Sunday that Judge Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her when they both were teenagers, Vermont's congressional delegation urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to halt its consideration of his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.
All three members — Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vt.) — said the committee's planned Thursday vote on the nomination should be postponed until authorities could fully investigate the claims. In an interview with Seven Days on Monday afternoon, Leahy said that Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, should both testify before the committee, on which Leahy serves.
“She’s willing to testify under oath,” the senator said. “Let her!”
Details of the allegations have trickled out since the committee's ranking member, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), briefed fellow Democrats last Wednesday, but Blasey Ford’s identity was not known until Sunday, when she shared her story with the Washington Post. She said that at a party in suburban Maryland in the early 1980s, a drunken Kavanaugh had pinned her to a bed, groped her and attempted to remove her clothes.
“I find her allegations worth looking into professionally,” Leahy said in the interview. “I mean, she’s shown some very incredible courage even coming in here and we’re dealing with a nominee whose veracity is already an issue.”
Tags: Senator , Brett Kavanaugh , Patrick Leahy , Bernie Sanders , Peter Welch , U.S. Supreme Court , Congressman , Senate Judiciary Committee , Christine Blasey Ford , Image , Web Only
Saturday, September 15, 2018
The board and Obeng announced that guidelines for material to be published in the Burlington High School Register are no longer in effect. Instead, the board and administration will develop a policy that is consistent with the free speech and student journalist protections under Vermont's New Voices law, the announcement said.
It effectively scuttles a policy that BHS principal Noel Green conveyed Friday, after a dramatic week of shifting decisions over coverage.
On Tuesday, Green ordered Register editors and their teacher-adviser to remove a story from the paper's website that detailed Vermont Education Agency allegations of unprofessional conduct against BHS guidance director Mario Macias. He denies the allegations.
Tags: the Register , Burlington High School , Yaw Obeng , censorship , Image , Web Only
Friday, September 14, 2018
The policy, issued two days after Green censored a story on the website of the Register, the school's newspaper, says that it is intended “to affirm support for the school newspaper, but also outline guidelines around how it functions.”
Seven Days obtained a copy of the new policy from the student journalists. It refers to Act 49, the Vermont law passed last year that was intended to prevent school administrators from censoring student journalists. But Green notes that there are six instances, such as libelous or slanderous information, that would be precluded from protection under the law, which is commonly referred to as New Voices.
“The only way school administrators can ensure that distributed material passes this litmus test, they must have the ability to view all material before it is printed,” Green wrote. “Thus, moving forward the BHS Register will re-continue the policy from 2016/17 which required material to be submitted to the administration 48 hours prior to publication.”
Tags: Burlington , Burlington High School , newspaper , Yaw Obeng , Noel Green , Mario Macias , Register , Vermont Press Association , Image , Web Only